


Stormbreaker

by Dangerousnotbroken



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Human!Castiel - Freeform, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 11:54:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11554674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dangerousnotbroken/pseuds/Dangerousnotbroken
Summary: The summer heat is oppressive like a prison, and Castiel misses Dean more than he misses the rain.





	Stormbreaker

It’s hot; not like summer, not like anything Castiel wants. It’s hot like hell, seething, under Castiel’s skin and in his mouth and he would give anything for a respite, even just a brief one. He’d sell his soul for a raindrop. He’d kill a man with his bare hands for a cool breeze. It’s hot like punishment, like retribution, and it stifles anything more than the bare minimum it takes to keep himself going. Once, he could have ignored it completely. When he was divine. When he was holy. Now he’s something less, something fragile and base and weak, something altogether too human to hold all the knowledge he’s squirrelled away in his grey matter, and he can’t use any of it to slake the thirst that grips him.

On the rickety front porch of a rancher that’s too small for the plot of land spread out behind it, Castiel watches the sky. It’s turned shades of grey now, not quite dark but definitely dim. Clouds rolled in this afternoon and just kept on coming, and where the sky was unbroken blue as far as the eye could see before, it’s now mottled and flat and dingy. Like socks left too long without washing. Like snow run over by too many cars, piled up and dirtied on the side of the road. He’d wish for snow now if he thought it’d do any good but he knows wishes are just as good as prayers these days, which is to say, not at all.

He doesn’t remember the last time he bothered with a shirt. Even the thinnest ones, the softest, worn down and broken in by years at the bottom of Dean’s duffle and wrapped around Dean’s body, are too much in this oppressive heat. He’d gone into town about a week ago for supplies, and he must have worn a shirt then or the girl at the grocery would have asked about his tattoos. She asks about Dean’s all the time, any that poke out from beneath his clothes. She’s never seen the ones on his chest. Nobody sees those except Castiel these days. But he’s got several on his arms now, and there’s two sets of stories to go with them: one for the random people who see ink and feel the need to ask, and one for those who’ve earned the truth. Castiel doesn’t have any such stories. He’s got scars though, and ink, and Dean’s shirts. The jeans are his own though, worn in and comfortable, if too thick for this kind of heat. He’d be sweating himself slick even without them anyway. Barefoot, sweaty and dusty and tired in a way that goes beyond sleep, he watches the sky.

Once, clouds like this would have worried him. Castiel would have glanced skyward and watched for a pattern, picked out omens and warned the Winchesters of impending doom with implacable calm he didn’t really feel. Once, he would have flown through those clouds, untouched by the water that formed them. Now he walks the earth, mortal and foolish like the rest of the mortals. Undone.

Dean is gone. Not gone-gone, but gone enough. Away. He always comes back. Always says he’s coming back. Castiel has no choice but to believe he means it, but gone is who he is. He doesn’t mean to be gone, it’s just in his bones. Castiel could go with him, of course. He’d be welcomed, if not with open arms then at least without complaint. But he can’t be what Dean needs out there on the road, can’t call down wrath or be heavenly muscle like he used to. He’d be a burden. He’d need a crutch. Dean’s slower now than he used to be, older and tired and worn, and Castiel would only slow him further. Dean won’t ever say that of course, and the arguments they have when Castiel says it for him are uglier than the storms brewing in those deep grey skies, so he’s stopped saying it. But nothing can force him to stop thinking it. Certainly not Dean.

One day, he’ll be gone-gone. Castiel is certain of it. One day, he’ll be gone and he will stay gone. Castiel will count the days in fitful worry, and then he’ll stop remembering to count, and it will dawn upon him one ugly, brutal morning that he’s gone-gone. The dark thing inside of Castiel, the thing that lives in the pit that opens up in his belly and swallows all the light, it tells him that it doesn’t have to be a creature that makes him stop counting days. It might be Dean himself. He might make himself stay gone one day, out of choice, because gone is who he is and gone is what he wants, and if Castiel won’t get gone with him then he’ll do it alone. It might not even be something he stalks in the shadows that takes Dean away from Castiel. He might just not want to come back.

Castiel thinks he’s been blessed for a moment, that the skies have opened up and given him a rain to break the oppressive heat, but it’s just the body-warm tracks of tears as they cut through the dust on his face. He wipes them away with the back of his hand and goes back inside the house, bare feet slapping on the hot, dry boards of the porch as he goes. The screen door bangs shut behind him, but otherwise it’s deathly still.

A barn cat sits on the table, peering at him through its one eye, notched ear flicking to catch a sound that Castiel can’t hear. He’s stopped trying to keep the barn cats out. They always find a way, and there aren’t screens on all the windows so even if he cared, it would be a choice between keeping the cats out or letting whatever breeze happens to kick up gust its way through the house, and he picks the breeze. The stripey orange cat is skinny, not malnourished just lean, and it meows at Castiel.

“What do you want?” he asks it, his voice softening just a little. The cat meows back inquisitively, then again with such insistence that Castiel feels judged. But that’s silly. It’s just a cat. It doesn’t care one bit what he feels.

He pulls out a bag of cat food he’s stashed away in the back of the pantry and pours a little bit into a dish, setting it on the floor to discourage the one eyed ginger from sitting on the table, then pours himself a drink. Only one. Never more, not when Dean’s gone. Never when he has to be alone.

Outside, thunder rolls, low and far in the distance, but Castiel hears it clear as a bell. If there’s lightning visible, it’s not to the south, not where the kitchen window faces. The ginger cat meows again, and the thunder rolls, and Castiel is alone.

An hour later, he’s still on that same drink, nursing it slow and careful. A cold beer might have done more to cool him off, the frost on the bottle chilling his hand when he pulled it out of the fridge, refreshing him just a little as it ran down his parched throat, but the burn of whiskey seems right for a night like this. Even with the storm, it hasn’t cooled off one bit outside, the heat still like hell, the sky still like anger, and whiskey suits the day and his mood. It won’t be dark for a while yet, but with the clouds, it may as well be. Only the lightning brightens the sky, sharp bright bolts to the east flashing for the briefest of moments before fading from view, leaving phantom images behind his eyes if he happens to look at just the right moment.

With the thunder rolling so close now, so loud, he barely hears it before it comes into view, but Castiel knows what it means the second his ears pick it up. He might as well be that one eyed ginger cat, ears perking up to catch the noise, on his feet in an instant. The gravel path digs into his soles, calloused enough for walking around barefoot in the house all the time, but not enough that this doesn’t hurt. He ignores it in favour of something much more important, the sleek black chariot easing its way down the drive to pull up beside the house.

There is no way Dean’s walk is anything but a saunter. He slings his army green duffle bag over his shoulder, wincing at the way it pulls at him, but drops it to the ground the second he reaches Castiel’s side. Castiel tastes copper when they kiss and he doesn’t ask, feels a rip in Dean’s shirt and knows without being told, but he’s upright and he’s walking and he’s not gone, not now, not anymore, and that’s all that matters.

Dean doesn’t breathe a word. Doesn’t have to. Castiel collects his bag and Dean grabs another out of the trunk, firearms for cleaning and blades for sharpening and whatever else needs something. Neither of the bags make it further than the front door, falling to the floor without a further thought.

Upstairs, in the bedroom, in _their_ bedroom, Dean makes Castiel forget. He forgets to be worried, he forgets what gone feels like. He forgets how much the heat feels like retribution for his sins, how easy he could lose the little that he has. He forgets the barn cats and the thunder and the whiskey and the prayers for rain. All he knows is Dean, the taste of his lips after the copper fades and all he can taste is Dean, warm and demanding and comforting. He strips Castiel naked and takes him in hand and strokes him until he’s keening, begging for something he can’t even put words to, but Dean knows, he always knows. Dean rocks into him so perfectly, tender and vicious all at once, exactly what Castiel needs, and it occurs to him that it’s exactly what Dean needs too. The wet tracks of tears run down Castiel’s face just like before, only now it’s Dean who wipes them away, a gentle and soothing touch instead of the rough hand of Castiel’s shame, and when Castiel blinks away the haze, Dean’s eyes are wet too.

After, on the porch, the ginger cat follows them out and stretches out with his belly exposed because for some unknown reason, he trusts them, and Castiel scratches him in gratitude. Castiel is back in his jeans even though it’s still too hot. Dean’s nude except for boxers. There is no one around for miles and there rarely ever is. He’s long past caring. The cat purrs, and Dean hands him a beer. In the distance, lightning flashes. One-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand, and the thunder rolls again.

“You should come with me next time.” It’s not a question, though it should be. It shouldn’t be either, but if it’s going to be anything, it should be a question.

“You know I—“ Dean cuts him off.

“You know I don’t give a damn. Don’t hunt. I don’t care. But don’t stay behind. I hate the thought of…I hate it without you.”

Castiel has never thought of it that way before. Has never dared to let himself. “Okay,” he says, easy as that, like it hasn’t plagued his dreams and haunted his days since Dean first started rolling down the long straight country road towards the horizon, since back when they first found this place. “Okay,” he repeats, but the thunder drowns him out.

“Let’s go back inside,” Dean suggests in a way that says he wants something more, something more satisfying than beer. Something only Castiel can give him.

Outside, the storm breaks. They’re too busy with each other to notice it, but the first blessed drops of rain start to fall. They’re swallowed up by the thirsty dirt almost as soon as they make landing, but it’s enough to drive the one eyed ginger cat onto the porch and through the open front window. It’s enough to take the heat from hellish to unpleasant. It’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I sat down to work on something entirely unrelated to this, but somehow, that's not what happened. An hour or so of uninterrupted word vomit, no editing, and I'm happier with this than I have been with any of my writing in quite some time. The cat is a cameo appearance from my much-beloved (and much missed) cat Milo, who always meowed at me like we were having a conversation, slept on my butt when I was lying on my belly, and loved me unconditionally. If he can't be here to snuggle me anymore, then I'd like him to keep Dean and Cas company in their broken down little rancher in the middle of nowhere.


End file.
